“Don’t be silly.”

It was true, though—the heat was wearing me down. I suffered flashes. Things shifted inside.

“Frank mentioned Dallas,” I said.

I saw the hard set of my brother’s jaw. I remembered that hardness from when Johnny was young, whenever one of my mother’s men had questioned something he had done. He had a temper.

“Give yourself a couple of days. You owe that to yourself.”

“We’re going to Siena.”

“Tell Frank you aren’t feeling well but you’ll meet him in Siena two days from now. In time for the spectacle.”

Johnny brushed back a bit of my hair. “At Orsini’s stables,” Johnny said, “there’s the stallion who ran the Palio a few years back. I know Frank wants to ride that horse.”

My brother’s eyes were dark, like my own. Our faces were like mirrors, one of the other, and in those mirrors we saw ourselves, our thin lips, our chestnut hair, the black eyes that seemed to be looking at something far away. I felt something well up inside. I buried my head in the crease of his shoulder.

“I can see your feelings are torn.”

He kissed me on the neck.

“Frank’s been good to me.”

“You need time to think.”

“I guess so.”

“A couple of days alone, you’d be surprised. Things have a way of solving themselves.”

––––––––

I fell asleep on Johnny’s bed there in the heat, on the white sheets, with the fan spinning overhead. The grogginess stayed with me later on the way to the Campo, as Johnny throttled his scooter through the streets. Johnny didn’t want me to leave Rome. I was his sister and he wanted me close, but he had selfish reasons, too. He’d done well with Orsini. He made money as a go-between, off the record, in a situation where his status as an outsider—whose actions could be disavowed—was of particular advantage. If I left, Paolo’s interest in Johnny might soon disappear.

“Out on the trail alone, beyond those stables, just Frank and I . . . we’ll have a chance to talk.”

“What will you tell him?”

“I’ll just soften the ground a little bit. So he has some idea how you feel.”

“This is really for me to do.”

“But you won’t.”

It was true. I’d never been good at such things.

“I depend on you too much.”

“You do.”

“You’ll be delicate?”

“Of course.”

We were at the Campo now, the scooter idling. The look he gave me, I didn’t know what to say.  I tasted something black at the back of my throat. He leaned toward me. He put his fingers on my lips, shushing me. He smiled in that way of his, so I couldn’t help but smile back.

His keys hung from the ignition.